Commander of 188th Armoured Brigade's 53rd Battalion, Lt. Col. Salman Habaka, 33, from Yanuh-Jat, fell in battle in the northern Gaza Strip. Habaka is the highest-ranking officer to be killed since the beginning of the IDF's ground operation. Since it began, 18 soldiers have fallen.
On the morning of Simchat Torah, October 7th, the day of Hamas' murderous surprise attack, Salman Habaka received a message about a major incident on the Gaza border. Although his soldiers from the 188th Armoured Brigade's 53rd Battalion were in the Hebron area, he moved part of the force to Tze'elim in southern Israel.
The soldiers from the battalion supplied the forces in the field with machine guns, and six of their tanks joined the battles. The crews were distributed between Be'eri, Kfar Aza, and Nahal Oz. An additional force was sent to the Erez border crossing.
In Kibbutz Be'eri, there were fierce and bloody battles throughout the day. Habaka came to Be'eri with two tanks and joined a group of paratroopers. Together with the rest of the forces, they pushed back the Hamas terrorists and decided the battle. The Bithonistim movement said that Habaka's decision to disperse the tanks proved to be a bold and smart decision since his crews pushed back another wave of terrorists that broke through the Erez crossing and killed the terrorists at the border.
The IDF announced that in battles in the northern Gaza Strip, three soldiers were severely injured, and an additional soldier from the Caracal Battalion was injured in the Paran Brigade region.
The soldiers who were injured in the Gaza Strip are a reserve officer from the 679th Brigade, an officer from the Givati Brigade, and a soldier from the 614th Battalion of the Combat Engineering School.